Primary Tools & Materials:PENCIL, DATA VISUALS

This letterform's primary analog tool is a pencil, and the digital tool is a constellation map. I wanted to create a letterform that loosely resembled a letter I drew by hand, but borrowed the visual language of a star map. I began with a pencil sketch of a serif letter 'c' on graph paper, then traced over my letter with tracing paper and a micron pen. I then experimented with different "star" points that could "map" the letter while remaining legible as a 'c.' Once I found a combination of points I liked, I scanned my drawings and created this stellar 'c' in Adobe Photoshop.

It has always struck me how arbitrary the outlines of constellations look on paper. To me, it seems like an awfully big stretch to turn a clump of seven or eight stars into a bear, or a crab, or a mermaid. (Is there a mermaid constellation? If not, there should be.) If you ignore the white outlines of this letterform, it's just dots. You could connect the dots in several other ways, and still make a 'c,' or you could make something else entirely. I wanted to keep that vagueness as part of this study.